Supporting Smart Mobility in Smart Cities Through Autonomous Driving Buses: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

As more and more people are moving to bigger cities, housing is becoming less and less available and cities are becoming more congested due to the high number of people and their cars. This leads to increased traffic, congestion, air pollution and degradation of quality of life. One approach to deal with this problem is to operate autonomously driving buses through artificial intelligence and internet of things. This paper compares four projects with autonomous driving buses. The aim is to find out, what added value such projects bring to smart cities. Findings indicate that well-implemented autonomous buses can reduce air and noise pollution, reduce congestion, and improve safety. In the paper, we identify enablers and challenges for autonomous driving from the four cases. While artificial intelligence and internet of things pose the biggest challenges in terms of scalability and interoperability, these disruptive technologies are also the biggest enablers, as these make the deployment of autonomous driving buses possible in the first place. The new data from the internet of things open up new possibilities for planning and operating autonomous busses.